Recommendation for a good wheel balance shop?

BA9092 · 08-07-2014, 03:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wstar

I have the same spacers on the rear of my car (in 10mm, but with aftermarket studs and wheels), and I wouldn't expect a problem with them since they're through-hole and pretty simple.

Whoever installed the 15mm spacers must have installed the +20mm studs as well, right? Any chance something went wrong there and you have a messed up wheel bearing? (e.g. from banging the old studs out or new studs in).

Assuming the wheels and tires are fine, the next best guesses are the wheel bearings and basically any of the suspension joints, of which there are many. Maybe go back to the suspension shop that aligned the car before and ask them to diagnose the vibration? Since they have experience with this stuff, they'll probably pull on a few things here or there and find the culprit pretty quickly.

Given how new and low-mileage the car is, one wouldn't expect any of those things to have just worn out on their own by now, but something could've become damaged or abused somehow (especially wheel bearings from stud installation). Sometimes wheel bearings are easy to tell, if you jack the car up and pull on the wheel with your hands enough to move the steering back and forth. You kinda have to know what you're feeling for, though (looseness other than the actual steering movement, basically), and not all bearing problems show up this way.

Yes, the +20mm. I don't think I messed up anything. It's pretty straight forward. I've replaced springs, shocks, struts, sways, end links, etc in the past on other cars as well. I did hit the original studs out with a hammer per procedure, but not hard enough to damage a bearing, I would suspect. There are much worse road conditions across the US and harder driven Z's than mine, so why or how would the bearings be that sensitive to knocking out a few stud bolts?

I pulled the knew studs in with the washers and nut method (pic attached of similar procedure) and a torque wrench. It took me a while since my impact gun isn't strong enough and I didn't want to damage anything.

I did jack up the car to where both wheels were off the ground and grabbed the 3 and 9 o'clock positions and pushed/pulled in and out to mimic steering, but found no play at all. (I did up and down - 12 and 6 o'clock as well just to make sure.)

I'll make an appointment with the suspension shop early next week and see if they can look over everything. Definitely cheaper than ordering new wheel bearings for the front wheels (both since I don't know which one(s) are bad.)

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